Seeking solutions for spraying...

OK, posting this on behalf of my cousin who is having some problems with one of her 3 cats now that her roommate got a kitten.

Biggs is 8, was with cousin since he was a kitten, was neutered probably at about 6 months old. Cousin and husband now also have an older male and a younger female (they had the 3 cats for several years, nothing new there), everything's ok... Biggs had a spraying spat a year or so ago, peed on clothes on the floor, in the closets, ON other stuff, that sort of thing. Vet checked him out, no health issues including no UTI, eventually he stopped, except he would still pee in the closet if someone left the door open.

Now cousin's roommate got a boy kitten about a month ago, it is living in roommate's bedroom still til he gets shots and stuff soon, but he comes out for supervised interaction with the 3 other cats. Biggs has started spraying on anything on the floor, speakers, bags, guitar case, box another cat sleeps in, clothes hamper, in the closet still if open, even on low hanging drapes, mostly in front of cousin, husband and roommate, but not always.

Do you think maybe he's marking up the whole house even though the kitten is only in the one room still?

More importantly, do you have any actual solutions to the spraying or know where i might find a solution? Cousin doesn't want to do Feliway diffusers because of the price and the fact that she's got friends who tried them and they did nothing.

Thanks for any help you can offer!!

ps- New news today, he didn't pee/spray yesterday at all, and he went in the yard for a bit with cousin, which he hasn't done since last summer when they were at a different house with a nice big yard. He loved being out. Maybe he'll be ok with some outside time? Or is it all to do with the kitten?

Multi cat households can cause multi cat behavioral problems........especially when they are not neutered/spayed and introduced appropriately....

Biggs shows stress by spraying. The kitten could be the main reason but when he is used to the newcomer, he will stop spraying. However, anything else may upset him. Anything new like furniture/appliance, unusual noise or a stray cat outside. Tell your cousin to try Rescue Remedy. I understand it only takes a few drops in the drinking water to get results.

I must mention that just because feliway didn't work for one cat doesn't mean it won't work for another--I just made a thread that has some feliway success stories in it. I have seen positive results in two days in my house. Its worth the price if it works.

Leslie

Originally Posted by cheylink

Multi cat households can cause multi cat behavioral problems........especially when they are not neutered/spayed and introduced appropriately....

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Biggs is/was fine with the intros of the other 2 cats my cousin has and has had for years. All 3 are spayed/nuetered.

Kitten is obviously not neutered yet since he's only about 3 months old but has been living in roommate's bedroom from day 1, almost a month now i think, except for a few times of supervised meetings.

Originally Posted by yayi

Biggs shows stress by spraying. The kitten could be the main reason but when he is used to the newcomer, he will stop spraying. However, anything else may upset him. Anything new like furniture/appliance, unusual noise or a stray cat outside. Tell your cousin to try Rescue Remedy. I understand it only takes a few drops in the drinking water to get results.

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I will mention Rescue Remedy, and also again the Feliway to my cousin. Poor Biggs is a crazy cat. It very well might just be stress of new things, since he has gone through spats of spraying before. Don't know why he always wants to pee in the closet though.. Seriously, if they're not careful, he'll dash in there while they're getting out clothes and just pee. But that problem is easily fixed by just not letting him get in there. It's the rest of the house, or rather STUFF in the house, that is suffering..

Originally Posted by DarkMavis

Kitten is obviously not neutered yet since he's only about 3 months old

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So long as the new kitten weighs 2lbs (they are usually by 8 weeks old) he can be neutered now, may help the situation.

Spirit Essences worked for us(when it was given properly). It's cheaper than Feliway which didn't work on this one cat that sprays.
http://www.spiritessence.com/
It's called safe space. They have other formulas too. If they aren't sure which to get, tell them to send an email. That's what I did to get a recommendation.
I would definitely try to get the kitten fixed already.

My household became a spraying war a while back when one of my cats got sick. It upset the balance of the house and 2 of my older boys started to spray. I had been using Cat Attract litter additive to their litter boxes. On the day that I switched over to full strength Cat Attract, the spraying stopped. Add a very clean litter box with Cat Attract to the advice previously suggested.

The other thing they need to do is to make absolutely sure that all spray marks are cleaned with an odor neutralizing solution. The one that works best for me is Nok Out. I found it online and works so much better than the ones sold in big pet stores.

In a multi-cat household unfortunately behaviour/territorial problems arise. The dominant cat likes to make sure everyone knows who has the "Power" and who is highest on the totum pole...lol! I don't know how big the place is that all of these cats are living together and this can play a huge role in behaviour. It sounds like the one cat did have behaviour problems in the past that cleared up for a bit. And maybe bringing the new kitty back into the mix triggered the bad behaviour? We can't expect all cats to get along. They are acting as they would be acting in the wild. We can not punish them for this behviour....we can only try to eleviate the behviour from happening. How long will these cats be living together? Also, the cat may not like so much going on in the house. He may like calmer, smaller living. And does not like sharing such a small space??? (just throwing ideas out there)

My sister has a very dominant male cat. After 2 years of living on her own with the 2 cats she moved back to parents house. Although there was only one cat left for my parents (all the family cats passed away already) there was smells every where of the previous cats. My sisters dominant cat went crazy. Over the 8 years he sprayed continuously.

In March she moved into a one bedroom apartment with her two male cats. What she did was not bring anything into the new apartment that had been sprayed (ie: dressers, clothes, bedding, rubbermaid containers, etc.). She now DOES NOT leave anything lying around on the floor or cluttered. She keeps her closet doors closed at all times. She has started feeding him an all canned food diet. She purchased 2 feliway diffusers for a 550 sqr feet apartment (you can purchase bulk cheap on Ebay or Amazon). When she first moved she would apply Bach Pet Rescue Remedy to the cats ear http://www.bachflower.com/Pets.htm (this is a great stress reducer for animals...I use it to take my cats to the vet or to the cabin). She also applied a flower essence to the cat called "spraying cat" off of Anaflora http://www.anaflora.com/essences/index.html. He has not sprayed since he moved intot he apartment in March. We are thinking that using a combination of the feliway diffusers (more than just one diffuser), using the rescue remedy and flower essence helped the situation. You may have to try a few remedies together to find one that works for the cats situation. All she uses now is the feliway diffusers. She says that he is a different cat....much more loving and much less stressed!!! I also like the Spirit Essences line for animals http://www.spiritessence.com/ that the other poster suggested (the one that was specifically posted sounds like a good essence for your cats situation)....

I know your cousin didn't want to try Feliway for this but I used it for the exact same problem and it solved it instantly. Go to Amazon for the best prices and be sure to get the diffuser if you do decide to try it.

So an update on Biggs... he hasn't peed in about a week! Outside the litterbox, that is.. Just kinda stopped out of nowhere.. Yay!

Miro the kitten has been coming out more and more but still only under supervision, they still don't quite trust him alone with the other cats, and it really seems it's cousin's sweet shy little female who's hating the kitten now, hissing lots whenever he comes near her. Biggs has been doing the raised paw "I will smack the $^@#& outta you if you come any closer kitteh!" thing, nothing rough, but they still don't trust him completely... But as of now, no more spraying or peeing or whatever. Keep your fingers crossed it keeps working out ok!